Number one problem of Bangladesh is overpopulation. The four largest metropolitan cities, Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, and Rajshahi contain over 56% of the total urban population of the country. Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh has a disproportionately large concentration of industrial and various public sector investments. More than 75% of the 4,107 export-oriented garment industries in the country are located in Dhaka. There are also higher concentration in the social service, trade, commerce, and finance sectors. For example, 48 of the country’s 54 private universities established in the last decade are located in Dhaka City. The situation is similar with respect to medical facilities. (Kanaley 2006) People in the rural areas do not get better education since; the quality of the education in the village is very poor. Without getting proper education, most of the rural people do not know about the bad effects of overpopulation and live their whole life under dark. This results in higher fertility rate for rural women. Total fertility rate for rural woman is 2.8 and for urban woman is 2.4. To find more opportunities, large number of people are migrating from underdeveloped areas or villages to developed areas or cities and creating an overpopulation condition in the cities. Most of the case, the hopes of a better life remains a dream and end up living in slums. As population increases in the cities, problems of sanitation, air quality, water quality and energy also increase. To reduce this load from the cities, rural areas needed to introduce with urbanism. Rapid urban growth could play a significant role in the development of the rural economy.
How urbanization is bad for the environment?
Urbanization could create problems for the environment, like deforestation, the filling in of water bodies, and leveling of hills. Most cities in Bangladesh are located along rivers. With an increasing population, poor or no urban planning, and poor management, water bodies in and around the cities have been seriously affected. Most water bodies in the cities have been unwisely filled up and canals and rivers grossly invaded by garbage. This results in poor drainage and becomes a serious problem after heavy rainfall. The rivers and canals in and around the cities are also becoming heavily polluted because of the uncontrolled emission from factories and the direct discharge of untreated sewage into the rivers. Many cities do not have sufficient transport facilities. Therefore, the number of private cars is higher in the cities. Poor management of traffic leads to traffic congestion in most cities and towns, particularly in Dhaka City. This congestion causes huge financial losses in terms of time wasted as well as air pollution. Cities also consume high amount of energy. Dhaka City alone is responsible for about 50% of the total power consumption. (Kanaley 2006)
How urbanization could be sustainable?
Since improper urbanization could create more problems than solving them, Bangladesh needs to adopt sustainable urbanism. Now a days, contemporary architecture and urban design are more popular. Therefore, the urban design should integrates all aspects of energy systems, transport systems, waste and water management, passive and active strategies into contemporary urban design and could improved environmental performance of the cities. Bangladesh could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing consumption, and by transferring to renewable energy sources. Sustainable urban design in rural areas in Bangladesh should include sustainable housing, well transport system, school, college, hospital, police stations, bazaars, park with the playground, lands for farming, and some local businesses.
Using natural daylight, rainwater, cooling breezes, and indirect solar exposure we could save energy. Winter in Bangladesh is not that severe, but in summer, it got quite hot and humid. Therefore, buildings do not need natural heating but they need natural cooling. Shading the buildings on the western and southern facades with external window overhang or adjustable shading devices, well-placed trees could help reduce the heat gain. On the other hand, windows in the northern side will help to bring the day light interior and that will save energy by not using artificial light. Solar panels are expensive. Therefore, they could not be installed in every house, but they could be installed in the noncommercial buildings to produce electricity. Vertical-axis wind turbine could also be used to produce electricity. To reduce the energy consumption, we should use less and proper material for construction. Brick is a popular construction material in Bangladesh since it is produce in many places and it is a reusable material. Therefore, brick could have less carbon footprint if it was produce sustainably. Beside brick, straw could be used in the low budget housing since rice farming is very popular in Bangladesh. Straw has been used earlier in housing but these new straw houses will be more modern and comfortable. For middle class people, there should be low raised apartments building with roof gardening, which will take up less land space. Some people could be little more creative by using recyclable plastic bottles as a building material. These plastic bottles could be used to make cheaper windows, which could have glass quality. (Lehmann 2007)
The garbage should be taken from every house, and the recyclable garbage should be recycled and the organic garbage should be decomposed and could be reused as fertilizer for farming locally. These different tasks will also open jobs for the local people. One idea that Gita Goven presented about the sewage system and waste reduction in her case study could be very helpful. The diagrams are very easy to read and they are shown below.
For transportation system, we should promote rickshaw, bicycles, and buses. The roads should have separate lanes for motor vehicles and vehicles without motor. Since Bangladesh has a lot of rivers, ferries, and boats could be used as transportation too. Well transportation system will discourage people to have private cars and this could be very helpful for the environment.
Conclusion
Of all the design fields, urban design has probably the greatest direct impact on the nature of cities and city life. Architecture and urban design both have huge potential to reconnect our relationship with the nature, the climate, the experience of the sun, the rain and the wind. Some cities have already taken some steps to sustainable programs. Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) took self sustaining projects which includes “programs on civic infrastructure development, garbage disposal, maintenance of parks and playgrounds, etc and has extended its services to other areas like education, health, environmental protection, preservation of hill areas, disaster management, establishing a compressed natural gas (CNG) plant, supplying water to poor communities, power plant installation, a pharmaceutical factory, garbage recycling plant, and shopping complexes.” (Kanaley 2006) In Bangladesh, people are more or less familiar with the „master plan concept. Therefore, to make Bangladesh prosperous and an environmental friendly country many people have to participate in urban planning and learn the importance of sustainable urbanism.
Why Bangladesh needs urbanization?
Number one problem of Bangladesh is overpopulation. The four largest metropolitan cities, Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, and Rajshahi contain over 56% of the total urban population of the country. Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh has a disproportionately large concentration of industrial and various public sector investments. More than 75% of the 4,107 export-oriented garment industries in the country are located in Dhaka. There are also higher concentration in the social service, trade, commerce, and finance sectors. For example, 48 of the country’s 54 private universities established in the last decade are located in Dhaka City. The situation is similar with respect to medical facilities. (Kanaley 2006) People in the rural areas do not get better education since; the quality of the education in the village is very poor. Without getting proper education, most of the rural people do not know about the bad effects of overpopulation and live their whole life under dark. This results in higher fertility rate for rural women. Total fertility rate for rural woman is 2.8 and for urban woman is 2.4. To find more opportunities, large number of people are migrating from underdeveloped areas or villages to developed areas or cities and creating an overpopulation condition in the cities. Most of the case, the hopes of a better life remains a dream and end up living in slums. As population increases in the cities, problems of sanitation, air quality, water quality and energy also increase. To reduce this load from the cities, rural areas needed to introduce with urbanism. Rapid urban growth could play a significant role in the development of the rural economy.
How urbanization is bad for the environment?
Urbanization could create problems for the environment, like deforestation, the filling in of water bodies, and leveling of hills. Most cities in Bangladesh are located along rivers. With an increasing population, poor or no urban planning, and poor management, water bodies in and around the cities have been seriously affected. Most water bodies in the cities have been unwisely filled up and canals and rivers grossly invaded by garbage. This results in poor drainage and becomes a serious problem after heavy rainfall. The rivers and canals in and around the cities are also becoming heavily polluted because of the uncontrolled emission from factories and the direct discharge of untreated sewage into the rivers. Many cities do not have sufficient transport facilities. Therefore, the number of private cars is higher in the cities. Poor management of traffic leads to traffic congestion in most cities and towns, particularly in Dhaka City. This congestion causes huge financial losses in terms of time wasted as well as air pollution. Cities also consume high amount of energy. Dhaka City alone is responsible for about 50% of the total power consumption. (Kanaley 2006)
How urbanization could be sustainable?
Since improper urbanization could create more problems than solving them, Bangladesh needs to adopt sustainable urbanism. Now a days, contemporary architecture and urban design are more popular. Therefore, the urban design should integrates all aspects of energy systems, transport systems, waste and water management, passive and active strategies into contemporary urban design and could improved environmental performance of the cities. Bangladesh could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing consumption, and by transferring to renewable energy sources. Sustainable urban design in rural areas in Bangladesh should include sustainable housing, well transport system, school, college, hospital, police stations, bazaars, park with the playground, lands for farming, and some local businesses.
Using natural daylight, rainwater, cooling breezes, and indirect solar exposure we could save energy. Winter in Bangladesh is not that severe, but in summer, it got quite hot and humid. Therefore, buildings do not need natural heating but they need natural cooling. Shading the buildings on the western and southern facades with external window overhang or adjustable shading devices, well-placed trees could help reduce the heat gain. On the other hand, windows in the northern side will help to bring the day light interior and that will save energy by not using artificial light. Solar panels are expensive. Therefore, they could not be installed in every house, but they could be installed in the noncommercial buildings to produce electricity. Vertical-axis wind turbine could also be used to produce electricity. To reduce the energy consumption, we should use less and proper material for construction. Brick is a popular construction material in Bangladesh since it is produce in many places and it is a reusable material. Therefore, brick could have less carbon footprint if it was produce sustainably. Beside brick, straw could be used in the low budget housing since rice farming is very popular in Bangladesh. Straw has been used earlier in housing but these new straw houses will be more modern and comfortable. For middle class people, there should be low raised apartments building with roof gardening, which will take up less land space. Some people could be little more creative by using recyclable plastic bottles as a building material. These plastic bottles could be used to make cheaper windows, which could have glass quality. (Lehmann 2007)
The garbage should be taken from every house, and the recyclable garbage should be recycled and the organic garbage should be decomposed and could be reused as fertilizer for farming locally. These different tasks will also open jobs for the local people. One idea that Gita Goven presented about the sewage system and waste reduction in her case study could be very helpful. The diagrams are very easy to read and they are shown below.
For transportation system, we should promote rickshaw, bicycles, and buses. The roads should have separate lanes for motor vehicles and vehicles without motor. Since Bangladesh has a lot of rivers, ferries, and boats could be used as transportation too. Well transportation system will discourage people to have private cars and this could be very helpful for the environment.
Conclusion
Of all the design fields, urban design has probably the greatest direct impact on the nature of cities and city life. Architecture and urban design both have huge potential to reconnect our relationship with the nature, the climate, the experience of the sun, the rain and the wind. Some cities have already taken some steps to sustainable programs. Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) took self sustaining projects which includes “programs on civic infrastructure development, garbage disposal, maintenance of parks and playgrounds, etc and has extended its services to other areas like education, health, environmental protection, preservation of hill areas, disaster management, establishing a compressed natural gas (CNG) plant, supplying water to poor communities, power plant installation, a pharmaceutical factory, garbage recycling plant, and shopping complexes.” (Kanaley 2006) In Bangladesh, people are more or less familiar with the „master plan concept. Therefore, to make Bangladesh prosperous and an environmental friendly country many people have to participate in urban planning and learn the importance of sustainable urbanism.
Citations
Goven, Gita. "Green Urbanism - Kosovo informal settlement upgrade." http://www.holcimfoundation.org/Portals/1/docs/F07/WK-Grn/F07-WK-Grn-goven02.pdf (accessed November 23, 2010).
Kanaley, Brian Roberts and Trevor. "Urbanization and Sustainability in Asia." 2006. (http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Urbanization-Sustainability/urbanization-sustainability.pdf) (accessed November 22, 2010).
Lehmann, Steffen. "Sustainability on the Urban Scale: ‘Green Urbanism’." May 15-16, 2007. http://www.unaus.eu/pdf/U010.pdf (accessed November 2010, 23).
Image citations
http://www.cnbc.com/id/31325671/Green_Cities_of_the_Future?slide=3
http://greenbuildingelements.com/2010/07/21/envisioning-a-sustainable-urban-future-with-an-architecture-exhibition/
http://webecoist.com/2010/02/10/plastic-fantastic-hand-built-ecological-bottle-house/
http://www.solarhaven.org/NewStrawbale.htm
http://msf.ca/blogs/GrantA/2009/02/
http://www.booooooom.com/2009/02/27/24k-gold-diamond-encrusted-aurumania-track-bike/
http://narijibon.blogspot.com/2007/06/life-of-rickshaw-puller-in-dhaka-city.html
Links
http://www.unaus.eu/pdf/U005.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S5ncMvWnAo&feature=player_embedded
http://www.hulu.com/watch/65875/building-green-straw-bales
http://www.adb.org/Documents/Books/Urbanization-Sustainability/urbanization-sustainability.pdf
http://www.holcimfoundation.org/Portals/1/docs/F07/WK-Grn/F07-WK-Grn-goven02.pdf
http://www.unaus.eu/pdf/U010.pdf